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I would like to run Windows 95 and old DOS programs on a newer Pentium 4 PC (or better). Can I partition the hard drive and install Win95 on one of the partitions. If not, can I wipe out Windows XP entirely and install Win95 on the new Pentium machine. Will Win95 run faster?
Given the issues you'd have with drivers, security and program support, why not just "try" it under a Virtual Machine first....
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Are you running WinXP on any computer? Look at the link below. If using WinXP home you may have some issues with Virtual PC 2007.
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If you're using XP Home and not able to use MS VPC2K7, then you might try VPC2K4:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...
or one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...Just be aware that there may be some glitches, and as a general rule, the guest OS will need resources from the host (i.e.---the host OS will tend to bog down). If your doing this for "nostalgia's sake", I'd suggest finding an older machine and use it for Win9x/DOS...
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if you are interested in playing around with a windows 9x type OS, try Windows 98 Second Edition and not windows 95.
i've switched to Linux!
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Thanks for all the help. I installed VirtualPC2007 on an IBM ThinkPad Pentium4m, 1.8ghz, 512 mb ram with Windows XP Professional edition. I created a Windows98 virtual machine. I then installed a cad program and a huge drawing file to use for speed comparason. The legacy PC is a Compaq Presario, Pentium 2, 300 mhz, 48Mb ram with Windows 95. The virtual machine was configured to be as identical to the legacy machine as possible. Test results: a regen command took 48 sec on legacy and 125 sec on virtual. That is a speed reduction of 160%. It took me two days to do this.
I am still wondering why a new PC cannot be fitted with an old operating system, and if there would be a performance increase. Has anyone tried to install Windows95 or 98 on a new Pentium 4 or higher PC ????
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>>>"I am still wondering why a new PC cannot be fitted with an old operating system, and if there would be a performance increase. Has anyone tried to install Windows95 or 98 on a new Pentium 4 or higher PC ????"<<<
It's not an issue of whether or not it will work (it likely would). It's more an issue of both Win95/98 not having much in the way of driver, software or security updates. Not being a smarta**, but if you don't mind working with older software on a new machine that:1. May not be able to have sound or better than 16 (maybe only 2) colors in Win95/98.
2. Doesn't have or will never have a SATA drive, or IDE drives beyond a certain capacity (or other new technologies that will come along).
3. Is never connected to the internet or a network, or uses floppies or any other shared software (it'd be wide open to various malware)...
4. Would need to be "tweaked" to utilize more than 256MB of RAM (and much beyond 256 would be unnoticable; there'd likely be problems beyond 1GB---and DOS would never utilize more than 64MB)
5. Would likely never have much new software applications written for it and updates for the existing OS would never occur and applications updates would be few or non-existant.
then go right ahead...
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If you throw more RAM at the project it may go faster. If all you are trying to do is install older software then you may be able to install it without needing the OS it was designed to run under.
Is that what you are trying to accomplish?
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Yes. All I wanted to do was to run my old software on a newer machine, so I can use an internet backup service. I followed your suggestion and installed my old CAD program, which was designed for Win3.0, and put it on my XP Thinkpad PC. Much to my supprise, It ran okay. I made another huge drawing and did a speed comparison. The old Win95 300 mhz machine took 50 seconds to refresh and the new XP 1.8 ghz machine took 16 seconds. A 212% speed improvement. Thank you for all the help. Problem solved.
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